Category: Quotables
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Writing Vs. Editing – and Oscar Wilde’s Commas
“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.” – Oscar Wilde** Editing can take forever. I can slave over one passage for hours, knowing it doesn’t say what I really want it to say yet, but without…
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No Such Thing as Creativity
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. – Ecclesiastes 1:9 According to this article in Slate, a wave of critics are asserting there never was any such thing as creativity, genius or innovation, and that everything new is merely…
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A Fighter or a Philosopher? Achilles Ponders
“One and the same lot for the man who hangs back and the man who battles hard. The same honor waits for the coward and the brave. They both go down to Death, the fighter who shirks, the one who works to exhaustion.” – Achilles, The Iliad (Book 9, 385-388, translation by Fagles, 1990) Like…
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Read The Iliad!
“Sing to me, Muse, of the wrath of Achilles…” – Homer, The Iliad I was blown away by how good The Iliad is. I’ve read classics before and wondered why they were considered classics, but I have no doubt as to why The Iliad managed to survive for thousands of years. And I’ve never been…
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Is it a Language or a Cultural Problem?
“A speaker of variety A who is dismayed or annoyed because speakers of variety B do not talk like the folks back home does not have a linguistic problem but a cultural one, which can only be solved if one is genuinely willing to work to develop the ability – which does not come naturally…
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Beware the “Self-Appointed Language Arbiter”!
“The view of language as a variable system is at odds with the notions expressed in traditional grammars and adopted by teachers who insist that there is only one “correct” way to speak the language… Though unsupported by any scientific evidence, such notions are propagated by a host of self-appointed language arbiters who proffer inept…
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The Dog Days of Summer
These are the dog days of summer. No, that’s not really a quote from anywhere (though you can feel free to quote my phrase as much as you want, as long as you attribute it to me 🙂 ). It’s just such a common description of these dead, hot summer days, and it just made…
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The Mother of Your Memory
“A repetição é a mãe da memória.” Yes, a Portuguese quote this time (add this to that French quote, and we’ll have a start on going through all the language in my Quotables section!) Anyway, it means, “repetition is the mother of memory.” I am currently in Brazil, so I hope to be repeating…
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Of Cellar Doors, and Naming Characters
“Most English-speaking people … will admit that cellar door is ‘beautiful,’ especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful that, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful…” – Tolkien, again, in English and Welsh Funny how some words sound nice, but when written, look ugly. I never would’ve thought of…
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When is a Novel not Like a Painting?
To value a work of art by the degree of its realism, by the accuracy of the details reproduced, is as strange as to judge of the nutritive quality of food by its external appearance. – Leo Tolstoy This quote got me thinking – in art, people have pretty much detached themselves from expecting a…
Hmm... 